


The Day The Music Died

by ambaila



Category: Suits (US TV)
Genre: F/M, Post Season 9, au? maybe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:35:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25027063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambaila/pseuds/ambaila
Summary: Harvey was told how music once made Donna smile. He wanted to put a smile back on her face.
Relationships: Donna Paulsen/Harvey Specter
Kudos: 12





	The Day The Music Died

The grand piano that was a surprise for Donna sat in the living room of their Seattle home. Harvey had it delivered while they took a week vacation and went to New York and Connecticut. They stayed the night in Boston before getting on a plane to come back to Seattle. He had gotten the notification that the piano had been delivered while they were in the air; thankfully Donna had fallen asleep on his shoulder and remained oblivious.

Surprise washed over her face as they walked in. Harvey had made intentional small talk to drive her attention from the large piece where they once had their couch. That couch had since been moved into the middle of the room. While he went further into the room, she remained behind. When he looked at her with that smug grin, tears were in her eyes.

“You once told me you played.” Harvey said. “Then I talked to your Dad.”

“My Dad told you about the piano?”

“No,” Harvey said, taking her hand and pulling her further into the room. “He told me about the day you stopped playing.”

Donna had wiped a threatening tear and took a shuddered breath. They had _just_ seen her father and the man said nothing. The man next to her had said nothing. She knew nothing.

“When did this get here?”

“While we were in the air,” Harvey said. “Just a few hours ago.”

Donna hesitantly took a step forward and ran her hands over the shiny black finish. This wasn’t her piano, but it was a piano. Her apartment in New York wasn’t large enough to house one. Harvey’s could have, but they didn’t live their long enough to contemplate adding anything. Now that they were here, in Seattle, and had been here for a year now – it only seemed right.

Gently lowering herself onto the bench, she stared at the instrument. She lifted the lid to reveal pristine white and black keys. Not daring to touch them, she let her hands fall back into her lap. It was then she felt her husband’s hands on her shoulders. She melted into his embrace and looked up at him.

“When did he tell you?”

“When we made it right.”

Donna turned on the bench, looking up at Harvey with wide eyes. “That was a year ago. You’ve had this in your mind for a year?”

“Happy Anniversary?” Harvey tried. “Donna, listen. You love music. You have great taste in it. Why not make some?”

“Music?”

“Why not?”

“I don’t remember how.“ Donna said quietly, with a shudder of guilt in her voice.

Harvey found her the next morning with her fingers on the keys. The delicate digits hovered as if trying to remember a time long ago. Her bare feet sat on the peddles and she had her back straight. It hit him then that she always had that posture. The years of piano playing gave her that straight back, powerful, posture. He sat a cup of steaming coffee on the top, to which he got a glare.

“If my piano has rings on it, Harvey, I’ll scream.” Donna threatened.

Instantly he lifted the cup and offered it to her. She stood from the bench and brushed up against him. “Thank you for my piano.”

“You want to keep it?” Harvey asked. “You should have told me last night when I called the guy to come pick it up. He’ll be here in ten minutes.”

“Harvey!”

The smug grin on his lips curled at the edges when he leaned into kiss her.

There was no guy; she smacked him in the chest.

The piano stayed in its place and once in a while did get rings; she did yell at him for it.

When she thought she was alone, or needed to think, she’d sit at the piano and play a few notes. Some nights Harvey would simply sit next to her and listen to her play, get the rhythm of the melody down. The flex of her fingers as they glided against the finish and along the slender black keys – she would made an amazing pianist. It was natural to her, once she picked it back up.

It surprised him though – as much as she hated to have rings on her piano, she left the lid open. It brought her joy, she told him. That she could sit at the piano whenever she wanted, and it was hers. It would go with her whenever and wherever they lived.

“It wasn’t like that with my father.” Donna told him sadly, one night.

He kissed her then and kissed her again when she told him she was pregnant. Pictures then littered the top of the piano. Sonograms, their wedding, family photos. Photos of when Elijah was born, took his first steps, first trip to New York. They were proud of the family they had. 

She had Elijah on her lap, his tiny fingers against the keys when Harvey came home.

“I think he’s likes the sound,” Donna laughed as the boy pounded the keys, making loud noises.

Harvey had put Elijah to bed that night and relished in the warmth as Donna curled herself around him.

Music filtered throughout the apartment. Piano sonatas, jazz streams, faint Broadway operettas – it was what they enjoyed. It was what Harvey taught Elijah about. The fact that Harvey had a wall of records still in his office and at home – the boy was curious. When the kid learned how to grab and pull – the records were relocated.

It broke his heart when Harvey came home one night to find a two-year-old Elijah on his mother’s lap. They were seated at the piano. She was playing a familiar tune, one she taught herself while pregnant.

“That’s oddly poetic,” Harvey remarked the night he realized the song she was playing.

“This was the song my Mom was listening to when I found out my parents were separating.”

Now, they were playing something different and livelier. Which was not poetic, or justifiable. As Harvey sat his coat down on the counter, pushing his way into the room, he mustered up the courage.

He was someone’s husband. A father. Donna’s best friend. She had done this before and why couldn’t he?

“Harvey?” Donna asked, breaking him out of his trance.

He leaned forward, with a little more force than necessary and swept Elijah out of her hold. He pressed his nose into the boy’s neck and inhaled the sweet scent of his son. The faint flowery smell of shampoo Donna used for bath time.

“I love you, kid,” Harvey muttered into the boy’s neck, causing Elijah to giggle.

Then he looked up at Donna and took her by the neck and crashed his lips against hers. She gasped at the force but melted into him. Her fingers covered his against Elijah’s back.

When Harvey pulled back, she looked dazed and then worry flooded into her eyes. “Harvey what’s wrong?”

“They couldn’t get a hold of you.”

“My phone is in the bedroom. When you called to tell me you were on your way I went to charge it.”

“Donna,” Harvey said.

He could do this despite the race of his heart.

He could be there for her, despite the anxiety racing through his veins.

She did this for him.  
She was there for him.

The least he could do was –

“It’s your Dad.”

Silence washed over them and Donna’s eyes searched his. Harvey nodded briefly and she took a step back.

“You should put him to bed,” Donna advised. “It’s late. We stayed up late for you.”

“Donna – “

“I’m okay, Harvey.” Donna mustered. “He really should go to bed.”

“Do you want to – “

“I’ll check on him later,” Donna said. “Go Harvey.”

He nodded and did as he was ordered. It was late, he realized. Later than normal. A case ran long, and Mike was busting his chops over trying to counter sue a business that was trying to sue them. Then Donna’s sister called, and he couldn’t get home fast enough.

Elijah was a hard sleeper, thankfully, and was sleep the second his head hit the pillow. Harvey sat with him for a little while, brushing the darkening hair away from his eyes. The boy was dressed in his pajamas. Donna had just given him a bath when Harvey called her. It was strange how life drastically changes within minutes.

Harvey found Donna curled against the piano. He pressed a hand to her back, to which, in an impressive singular movement was on her feet and in his arms. He held her and pressed a kiss to her hair. He pressed a kiss to her lips and just held her that night.

Then it was like nothing happened. She woke and got Elijah out of bed. Fed him, changed him, dressed him for the day. They went through the motions of their day. With one exception. Neither went to work. Neither of them broaching the subject of her father. 

Three weeks later, after going to Boston for her father’s funeral and back home to a stormy Seattle, he found Donna at the piano. He sat down next to her and pressed a kiss to her temple.

“My mom said he had just gone to sleep.” Donna said through tears. “He didn’t wake up.”

“It happens.”

“How do you get over it?” Donna asked. “Harvey?”

“You don’t,” he said honestly. “Not for a while anyway. It takes time.”

His mother had been gone for years. His father even longer. All Harvey could do was press another kiss to her temple and settle his hands on the lid of the piano. Donna had closed it the night he told her about Jim. She didn’t go near it or play it, until tonight.

“I’ve got something for you.”

Harvey lifted the lid and produced a small box. He handed it to Donna.

“Harvey,” she warned.

It wasn’t Tiffany’s. It wasn’t anything expensive. He saw it in her mother’s house and took it. He packed it away so she wouldn’t find it.

Unwrapping the tissue paper, she gasped. “How did you get this?”

“It was on the bureau in the dining room.” Harvey shrugged. “I swiped it.”

“You stole a photo of my father from my mother?”

“Technically it’s a photo of your father and your son,” Harvey pointed out. “But are you mad that I stole a photo or that I didn’t tell you I was stealing it?”

Mike had taken the photo not so long ago, when they went East for Christmas.

She looked at the image again – black and white – and settled it on top of the piano. She tilted her head and adjusted it. Elijah was just a baby then. He was cradled in Jim’s arm and they both were asleep.

“Thank you, Harvey,” Donna said, looking up at him.

“Anytime,” he said with a smirk and a grin.

They sat in content silence until they went to bed. It would be years before Harvey would hear her hum the once familiar tune she played at the piano. The lid never closed again. Neither did she play. But the morning she hummed, she smiled at Harvey who smiled back.

_They were singing, bye bye Miss American Pie._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for everyone who read! Let me know what you thought!


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